Medium density control for coal washing dense medium cyclone circuits

The dense medium cyclone (DMC) process used in coal beneficiation plants is studied from a control system perspective. Employing the dynamic model of the DMC process derived from mass flow balance, a model-based control strategy is proposed. The controller adjusts the density of medium used to enhance separation in the DMC process according to measurements on percentages of different components in raw coal. The first objective of the control is to maintain the carbon content in the clean coal to a set level. The second purpose is to minimize energy consumption of the DMC process in view of the fast increasing electricity price. The controller solves an optimization problem formulated to determine the density of medium whenever new measurements are available. Both coal quality and DMC operational constraints are accounted for. Simulations, based on measured plant data, are carried out to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the control strategy designed. The results show that the designed controller is able to fulfill its purpose satisfactorily when the characteristics of the raw coal varies and when measurement uncertainties are in presence

Two-dimensional approximately harmonic projection for gait recognition

This paper presents a two-dimensional approximately harmonic projection (2DAHP) algorithm for gait recognition. 2DAHP is originated from the approximately harmonic projection (AHP), while 2DAHP offers some advantages over AHP. 1) 2DAHP can preserve the local geometrical structure and cluster structure of image data as AHP. 2) 2DAHP encodes images as matrices or second-order tensors rather than one-dimensional vectors, so 2DAHP can keep the correlation among different coordinates of image data. 3) 2DAHP avoids the singularity problem suffered by AHP. 4) 2DAHP runs faster than AHP. Extensive experiments on gait recognition show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method

Coordinated two-stage volt/var management in distribution networks

This paper investigates daily volt/var control in distribution networks using feeder capacitors as well as substation capacitors paired with on-load tap changers. A twostage coordinated approach is proposed. Firstly, the feeder capacitor dispatch schedule is determined based on reactive power heuristics. Then, an optimisation model is applied to determine the dispatch schedule of the substation devices taking into account the control actions of the feeder capacitors. The reference voltage of the substation secondary bus and the tap position limits of transformers are modified such that the model adapts to varying load conditions. The optimisation model is solved with a modified particle swarm optimisation algorithm. Furthermore, the proposed method is compared with conventional volt/var control strategies using a distribution network case study. It is demonstrated that the proposed approach performs better than the conventional strategies in terms of voltage deviation and energy loss minimisation

Functional characterization of TRICHOMELESS2, a new single-repeat R3 MYB transcription factor in the regulation of trichome patterning in Arabidopsis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Single-repeat R3 MYB transcription factors (single-repeat MYBs) play important roles in controlling trichome patterning in <it>Arabidopsis</it>. It was proposed that single-repeat MYBs negatively regulate trichome formation by competing with GLABRA1 (GL1) for binding GLABRA3/ENHANCER OF GLABRA3 (GL3/EGL3), thus inhibiting the formation of activator complex TTG1(TRANSPARENT TESTA GLABRA1)-GL3/EGL3-GL1 that is required for the activation of <it>GLABRA2 </it>(<it>GL2</it>), whose product is a positive regulator of trichome formation. Previously we identified a novel single-repeat MYB transcription factor, TRICHOMELESS1 (TCL1), which negatively regulates trichome formation on the inflorescence stems and pedicels by directly suppressing the expression of <it>GL1</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We analyzed here the role of TRICHOMELESS2 (TCL2), a previously-uncharacterized single-repeat MYB transcription factor in trichome patterning in <it>Arabidopsis</it>. We showed that TCL2 is closely related to TCL1, and like TCL1 and other single-repeat MYBs, TCL2 interacts with GL3. Overexpression of <it>TCL2 </it>conferred glabrous phenotype while knockdown of <it>TCL2 </it>via RNAi induced ectopic trichome formation on the inflorescence stems and pedicels, a phenotype that was previously observed in <it>tcl1 </it>mutants. These results suggested that TCL2 may have overlapping function with TCL1 in controlling trichome formation on inflorescences. On the other hand, although the transcription of <it>TCL2</it>, like <it>TCL1, </it>is not controlled by the activator complex formed by GL1 and GL3, and TCL2 and TCL1 proteins are more than 80% identical at the amino acid level, the expression of <it>TCL2 </it>under the control of <it>TCL1 </it>promoter only partially recovered the mutant phenotype of <it>tcl1</it>, implying that TCL2 and TCL1 are not fully functional equivalent.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>TCL2 function redundantly with TCL1 in controlling trichome formation on inflorescences, but they are not fully functional equivalent. Transcription of <it>TCL2 </it>is not controlled by activator complex formed by GL1 and GL3, but <it>MIR156 </it>controlled SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN LIKE (SPL) transcription factors. However, SPLs might require co-activators to regulate the expression of their target genes, including <it>TCL1</it>, <it>TRY </it>and possibly, <it>TCL2</it>.</p

Dynamic interactions of a conserved enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli adhesin with intestinal mucins govern epithelium engagement and toxin delivery

At present, there is no vaccine for enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC), an important cause of diarrheal illness. Nevertheless, recent microbial pathogenesis studies have identified a number of molecules produced by ETEC that contribute to its virulence and are novel antigenic targets to complement canonical vaccine approaches. EtpA is a secreted two-partner adhesin that is conserved within the ETEC pathovar. EtpA interacts with the tips of ETEC flagella to promote bacterial adhesion, toxin delivery, and intestinal colonization by forming molecular bridges between the bacteria and the epithelial surface. However, the nature of EtpA interactions with the intestinal epithelium remains poorly defined. Here, we demonstrate that EtpA interacts with glycans presented by transmembrane and secreted intestinal mucins at epithelial surfaces to facilitate pathogen-host interactions that culminate in toxin delivery. Moreover, we found that a major effector molecule of ETEC, the heat-labile enterotoxin (LT), may enhance these interactions by stimulating the production of the gel-forming mucin MUC2. Our studies suggest, however, that EtpA participates in complex and dynamic interactions between ETEC and the gastrointestinal mucosae in which host glycoproteins promote bacterial attachment while simultaneously limiting the epithelial engagement required for effective toxin delivery. Collectively, these data provide additional insight into the intricate nature of ETEC interactions with the intestinal epithelium that have potential implications for rational approaches to vaccine design

Unsupervised Deep Cross-Language Entity Alignment

Cross-lingual entity alignment is the task of finding the same semantic entities from different language knowledge graphs. In this paper, we propose a simple and novel unsupervised method for cross-language entity alignment. We utilize the deep learning multi-language encoder combined with a machine translator to encode knowledge graph text, which reduces the reliance on label data. Unlike traditional methods that only emphasize global or local alignment, our method simultaneously considers both alignment strategies. We first view the alignment task as a bipartite matching problem and then adopt the re-exchanging idea to accomplish alignment. Compared with the traditional bipartite matching algorithm that only gives one optimal solution, our algorithm generates ranked matching results which enabled many potentials downstream tasks. Additionally, our method can adapt two different types of optimization (minimal and maximal) in the bipartite matching process, which provides more flexibility. Our evaluation shows, we each scored 0.966, 0.990, and 0.996 Hits@1 rates on the DBP15K dataset in Chinese, Japanese, and French to English alignment tasks. We outperformed the state-of-the-art method in unsupervised and semi-supervised categories. Compared with the state-of-the-art supervised method, our method outperforms 2.6% and 0.4% in Ja-En and Fr-En alignment tasks while marginally lower by 0.2% in the Zh-En alignment task.Comment: 17 pages,5 figures, Accepted by ECML PKDD 2023(Research Track